


The weight is so strong, no place to belong (But somehow I bloomed under the moon)

by Justausernameonline



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Cranscott in the background, F/F, Freeform, On Hiatus, Past Tense, Present Tense, Tumblr Prompt, adhd dyslexic Kimberly, ask to tag, avoidant Trini, one biggie chopped into twelve smallies?, selectively mute Trini, trimberly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-08 21:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11090712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justausernameonline/pseuds/Justausernameonline
Summary: Appealing as the acoustics in the cavern were, she rather wanted the thrum of a guitar swaying her to sleep.  Or, a hand tracing soft crescents at the insides of her wrists, curving lips moments away from pressing to the nape of her neck, and eyes of warm earth, copper and cinders, her voice a tidal wave, a murmuring brook.//“Kimmy…Kimberly.  Hey.” Trini turns her head just so, kissing Kimberly’s palm, lets it keep cradling her, putting a shock through her system.Kimberly opens her eyes slowly.“You are enough.  You’ve always been.  It’s just–it’s just a lot to take in, just like I said.  And I’ll do it.  Take a bath.  Will you lead the way?”//A week's worth of Trini and Kimberly's time together.  Wisdom teeth, covert invention-building, eating, stories built off questions! Whatever's been given, they answer.  (answer to an ask meme that was sent a month ago)





	1. Who falls asleep on the couch?

**Author's Note:**

> (http://downmoonwrites.tumblr.com/post/106929336343/shipping-meme)
> 
> so i could've left it at a few sentences, but then i had this idea of turning them into prompts >____> enjoy!
> 
> reading it like one long one shot is also recommended

The drive back to the Hart household took rough roads and angular paths, much to Trini’s discomfort, as her head would’ve bounced off if not for Kimberly’s hand supporting the back of her neck as they shared the backseats.  Mrs. Hart drove on the slowest lanes, making for a longer journey.  Lolling her head back, she leaned much of her weight against Kimberly.

In spite of all the open windows blowing hot air at them, hair knotted in a loose bun well away from her neck, and hands apart from the searing arm support to combat the heat, she stuck to her, and one bright idea later, she had her fingers laced with Kimberly’s, tracing the back of her fingers and looking ahead.  

“How are you?” Kimberly asked as she turned.  Her free hand reached to shake the hem of her grey blouse in waves, cotton and airy sleeves that had an opening for her sun-kissed shoulders.  She smoothed it over the belt of her high-waisted jeans.  Her hair clung to the back of her neck and sweat beaded her forehead–but she was asking Trini?

“I’m good,” Trini managed.  “D’you need water?”

Kimberly shook her head, smiling. 

“Aren’t you hot? Besides being hot,” she murmured as she splayed her hand softly against Kimberly’s sternum, feeling the sweat through the thin fabric and the quick intake of Kimberly’s breath.  She frowned and wagged her head, stopping it immediately.  “Owh.” she groaned, and her hand slid lower.  “Live!” She began fumbling open the first button of the blouse, desperate for her to properly breathe.

“I-I’m properly breathing.” Kimberly’s hands trembled as she pried Trini’s own and set them on her lap.

”You’re breeding erratically,” Trini protested.  She cleared her throat.  “Briefing.  Breathing.”

”Mom?” Kimberly whimpered.

”Yes? Does Trini have her seatbelt on?” Mrs. Hart asked.

“Yes…”

“Great!”

“Mom, I’m bi.”

“I know, child.  Make sure Trini is comfortable.”

“When will the anesthesia wear off?”

“I suppose in a few hours.”

Kimberly sighed.  Trini frowned and cupped Kimberly’s face.  “What made your sadness?” she asked.  “It’s me? Tell me what I do…”

“It’s not you,” Kimberly soothed.  “You’re just high.”

“But! Never?” Trini leaned close to Kimberly as far as her seatbelt allowed, almost bumping her mouth on her chin.  “Can you breathalyzer?”

“No.” Kimberly’s laughter sounded like she was weeping.  

“I’m not funny! You–you are, you look p-p-p-pink, like,” Trini snapped her fingers, just as Kimberly would do, “when you morph into–”

“My bathing suit!” Kimberly said.  “Right?”

“No but okay.” Trini raised her arms.  Kimberly laughed again, and she smiled even with her mouth still numb, propping her chin on the back of the car, trying to absorb it all.  “Gosh,” she sighed.

“What’s up, Trini?”

“You,” Trini murmured.  “You.”

“Me?”

“Effervescent.”

“Did she just say a big word on anesthesia?” Mrs. Hart asked behind the wheel.  “Wow.”

“I love you so much it hurts,” Trini said.  “Like uh, uh, I dying star but feel like baby star? Yeahah.” She nodded seriously.  “Legit.  It’s lit.”

Kimberly’s breath caught, her eyes widened, and she seemed to petrify, but so, so slowly.  

“Kimmy?”

Said girl’s eyes sparkled in the sunny day.  She opened her mouth then swallowed.  

Utterly speechless.

Trini almost thudded her head on the backseat.  Not good.  She pitched her gaze downward, leaning to set a hand on Kimberly’s wrists, squinting hard at the vibrant dark patterns wound around them to the backs and palms of her hands.

“Is this hella?”

“…Henna,” Kimberly murmured.  “It’s mendhi in Hindi.”

Trini hummed low into her throat, and before she could regret it, she planted her lips on the back of Kimberly’s hands, kissing each as long as she could.  

“They’re beautiful,“ she said, voice punctuating the air.  “I’m not forgetting you, too…” Pushing some of the hair around Kimberly’s face away, she managed to kiss her again on the jaw with what her seatbelt allowed her, delivering an tremendous smack at its completion, content with the mark her lipstick left.

She slumped onto her lap, lips brushing Kimberly’s neck as she did so, suddenly drowsy, glad for the sweet incoming exhaustion.  

“Bye now,” she slurred.  She shuttled away from any of the Harts’ responses that were to reach her. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

Trini came to again, woken by the lurch of the van as it slowed to a crawl at the driveway.

Like she was at the mercy to the rock of a wayward ship, she stumbled inside the Hart household, led by Mrs. Hart’s hand on her back.  Kimberly had her arm wrapped to her waist.  She blearily picked a spot to lie in, numbly sipping at a water.

She plopped her head on the pillows of their grey couch, up and away.

She didn’t dare rise again when her alarm for six am blasted a riff from a bass guitar sending shudders up her spine, jarring her with its tremors.

“Hijo de papel,” she muttered, hands slowly smacking their way to the source.  The alarm stopped before she could reach it, followed by a light thud on wood.  She stiffened.  

“Buenos días,” Kimberly announced herself, voice landing from above.  

Trini relaxed eased back down onto the couch.  

Wait.  The couch–it wasn’t.

“¿Como estas?”

“Uhm…gck.” Trini opened her eyes, grimacing at the grit she felt around them as Kimberly passed a glass with water, squinting from the light of the desk lamp across the bed.  Slowly pushing herself to a sitting position, she took a couple experimental sips, swallowing until the dry balloon-feeling inside her throat vanished.  “Bien.” 

“Tambien.”

She rummaged around for the right word.  

“Aabhar,” she whispered.  

Kimberly’s eyes widened.  She smiled.  “No problemo.”

Trini frowned.  “Manne ma…no…manne maaf karo.” She winced as she pronounced the apology.

“¿Que para, Trini?” Kimberly insisted.  

“Porque…” Trini shook her head and switched to English. “I overstepped.”

“It’s fine.”

“Oh.” She nodded slowly.  She glared at the floor, shifting, freezing at the familiar layout of Kimberly’s bedroom cloaked in early morning darkness, the piles of square papers laid on her nightstand, the heavy blanket laid underneath her and Kimberly hugging her legs while seated on her swivel chair, and freezing for the pang that tore into her chest.  It wasn’t from skipping lunch and dinner.  She’d had a big breakfast.  

Gingerly, she named the feeling ‘upset and something else not good’.  She shut her eyes, clenching her jaw.  The pain jolted her to open them again.  

“We’re dating, aren’t we? I liked the keys,” Kimberly piped up.  “Kiss! I meant the kiss.” She smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  Without it, Trini’s lipstick shone on her jaw, clear as the sunlight through Kimberly’s blinds.

“Cool,” Trini said, glancing down.  “I didn’t force you to share your bed, did I?” ‘Did I manipulate you?’

“No, but I asked since you woke up from the couch complaining about the ache at the back of your head.  We had guest rooms, but you just stuck to me like a koala to a tree and my parents couldn’t remove you? They do like you,” Kimberly added quickly, “they were afraid you were going bounce down the stairs.”

Trini closed her eyes.  “Thank you, Mrs. Hart and Mr. Hart,” she said, theatrically blowing a kiss to the ceiling.  

Kimberly chuckled.  “My mom dressed you up in the pajamas you brought.”

“I need to thank her for that too.  My dad, did they call?”    

“Yeah.  They told me to tell you hello and that your mother’s still on her business trip.”

Trini blew out a deep sigh.  “Thank you.”  Her tongue zig-zagging around her mouth, she felt the gauze was gone, just dull pain pricking her everywhere.  “Hey,” she remembered, gently reaching to poke Kimberly’s chin, the motion seeming to drain the last dregs of her drowsiness as she smiled a little knowingly, “you’ve got a bit of something there.”

“What is it?”

“Lipstick.”

“Ah,” Kimberly said, going as red as the dawn.

After a quick wash and checking off her belongings, changing into a deep fuschia sweater and loose camos, Trini filled her thermos with a tea blend in the Harts’ cabinet, an alleged favorite the family.  She stowed it into her bag and turned to the couch where Kimberly sat with a piping mug.  

She gave a tender kiss, smiling into her mouth, not pushing her limit nor testing the fresh stitches in her gums.   Trini caught clove, cinnamon, and her first taste of cardamom on Kimberly’s lips as well as some more she couldn’t pin down.  

Involuntarily, humming, she nipped at her bottom lip, almost jumping when Kimberly groaned from the sensation and set her mug on the coffee table.  She drew away.  “Too early?” she asked.

She stilled as hands settled on the small of her back, Kimberly surging to meet her lips again.  “Never,” Kimberly replied, gaze fully set on her, the attention kind of overwhelming in the young morning and just on her because she was…whatever.  Eh.

Eh.

Whatever.

Outside of training, outside of class.  She wouldn’t say, out of fear of raising doubt, catching Kimberly perched on the benches after her final period, which had become a thing in the past months post-battle, surprised her every time.  Sometimes she thought to tell Kimberly she gave too much of herself to their relationship, that the feelings would dissipate after the extremities of vigilantism had dwindled to a calm.  That Kimberly would find someone else and that theirs was a good run but it had weak foundations anyway.  That she didn’t know what it was like, at the end of day, to leave someplace to find someone waiting for her, because of her, not for her services or goods or advice to scuttle away afterwards, but simply for her.  

And it was awful difficult for her to understand that.  Indeed–schoolwork was quicker solved.

‘Her.’  All in all, Trini was still a singularity.  But she had a flaunted front in all her years just being anything that would help her get by, and it had left whole chunks of her missing that at this rate.  She was collapsing in on herself, possibly taking others with it, just like a dying star.  Not that she was going to tell anyone ever that was how she felt.  Even Kimberly.

Unless she had and she was fucked.  

(When wasn’t she ever fucked?)    

“I’m going to eat.”

Guilt clouded Kimberly’s face, probably remembering the meals Trini had missed since the teeth removal.  

Her heart skipped and her mind screamed.

Kimberly opened her mouth, but Trini was there first, sealing it with her finger.  She had a soft-textured breakfast in mind.  “You got those bagels?”

“Yeah.”  

There then, the easiness of the early morning struck her, doing its best to hip-check her old thoughts out of mind as they sat on the counter together, Kimberly fitting the eighth of a pineapple into her mouth while she checked the ingredients in the soft bagels.  She didn’t have many of these moments ever when they were always so tenuous, where each day began like a too-tightly wound fiber susceptible to break.  But with the Harts, as wary and as misplaced Trini felt waiting for signs of the family’s dreamy symbiosis to show falsehood, as attuned as she was to abuse, there wasn’t a thing to go by.

They were what they were.  Honesty was the virtue it was, not twisted to a vice, what with her experiences.

She frowned at a cinnamon bagel, stopping that rancid dam before it broke.  Of course, she couldn’t conceive what was supposed to be a wonderful living space with her mother, as with Papa with his wife.  And her little brothers.  Mrs. Cranston, Miss. Taylor, and Mrs. Scott came to mind as well.  How could she have forgotten them?

She wouldn’t know until they were free–Papa, the little ones, the stream of people unfortunate to have been in her mother’s path.  Whatever method, whenever, forever.

Kimberly seemed to start her day with a bagel too, giving Trini a set of choices after a pop through the toaster, tilting her head when Trini found the grapefruit juice in the fridge.  

“You like that?” she asked as she laced up her running shoes.

Trini nodded as she throttled the bottle.  She tested a swig of the stuff with a glass cup.  Cold from its stay, it burned her tongue.  She winced.  “Too sweet.”

“’Two sweet’?” Kimberly laughed even as the bottle cap bounced off her head.  “C’mon, we got to catch the sunrise.”

“Where do you get your energy?”

“From your kisses, of course.”

Trini spluttered.

“Can I have some more today?”

“I have morning breath.”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“You’re too kind.” Trini looked off to the side as she chugged the acidic juice down her throat, the corners of her lips turning upwards.

She gargled mouthwash while Kimberly brushed her teeth.

Their trek uphill to Kimberly’s favorite bluff, mostly flat and grassy from spring to early fall, was about half an hour, cut to a quarter when at their superhuman strides.  

“Fifteen minutes down by sled, too!” Kimberly added as she scrambled up a rather steep joint while Trini picked a winding, safer way after her.

“Did you break some bones?” she asked.

“Some bones,” Kimberly said with a tinge of embarrassment, as if she was expected not to.  Trini politely left it at that.

The rest of the way was a gentle slope for Trini to crouch on to catch her breath, a tad regretful for bringing most of the contents in her backpack.  She murmured her thanks when Kimberly volunteered to carrying it the rest of the way, watching her look to and fro before bounding the entire remainder in one swell leap.  

“Forgot that,” she muttered, cheeks flushing as she jumped after her.

They set aside some of the bluff for their footwear, lining them in a row.  Trini anchored the flannel quilt they would lie on with a couple geodes and a binocular on the corners as Kimberly tidied the center.  In an instant, they flopped down together, hands finding each other without a look, pulling the strong winds into their lungs, feeling the rest of the world settle at the outskirts of their minds.

They sat up and watched the sky shift before them upon the highest crag and shortest trees where the sunrise spanned miles, frosted flakes of blue altocumulus clouds migrating eastward, their undersides a burnished pink, pleasant blooming masses to Trini’s eyes.  She managed to sit still throughout without incident as the brightest yellows came and the darkness went on its worn way, while a canal formed in light of a few vaporous wisps of cirrus.  

“You should really get to know your cloud formations,” she blurted, tilting toward Kimberly, whose glance back resembled a broken trance, as if she had asked that she join her for penguin gliding.  Her face heated.

Kimberly nudged her lightly with a smile, and she took a deep breath.  Went for it.

“You’re the only aerial Dinozord pilot as far as we know of, and they’re gonna be underpinning values,” she said once she parsed her thoughts accordingly.  “Our first battle demonstrated you as a good tactician, you watched over us, so if you learn as many terms for piloting, you’ll feel safer in the sky depending on what you find–”

“And I’ll make you all feel safer?–Sorry.”

“No, that’s a good point.”

“I leap ahead sometimes, bite my hand,” Kimberly’s voice trailed off in embarrassment.  “You were saying, clouds?”

“Yeah.  That's one of many.”

“I’ll do it for you guys and the whole planet.”

“Thanks.” Trini squeezed her hand.  

They laughed a little at the exchange.

“So, how much does our lives hinge on clouds?”

“The question is, how can our lives hinge on clouds?”

While Trini unfolded the dichotomy between stratus and cumulus clouds, then got into detail of high to mid to low clouds, wall clouds, shelf clouds, mammatus, the ones that were low fog, Kimberly hung onto every word.  

They passed her thermos between them, Trini’s sketchbook laid out on the grass, weighed down by the sheer will of her free arm holding down the pages as she put a smatter of anything she had brought to attention, tearing pages into Kimberly’s hands that she would add watercolor to later, hole-punch into a classification already on websites.

But the notes, they worked.  Here, she warmed up with the sunlight dappling the back of her neck, pencil almost pitching off the bluff twice in its twirling, breathing in sync with Kimberly Hart.  

That was what their purpose as Rangers came down to, right?

Probably?

To have their fear funneled into the second realized love for the earth, as broad and simplified with all the woes and joys in-between.  

The first was as children, and they were the late-bloomers.  

Last place didn’t feel such as bad to wallow in, looking skyward as the world cradled her palm, brimming of newfound ideas to go on.

Her troubles were aged and her days felt numbered as always, but those were the thoughts furthest from her mind as she took Kimberly’s had in lieu of handing her a page, drinking in the surprised delight that came to her eyes as she kissed her fingers.


	2. Who makes friends with the neighbors?

A melodic fart ripped through the morning air, and Trini hopped a yard.

Kimberly merely tilted her sunhat and head up to Trini as she returned on a three-point landing. “Did you do that?” she asked absently.

“Yes, absolutely.” Trini rolled her eyes.

Kimberly chuckled. “Just kidding. Do bears fart?”

“Kimberly,” Trini whispered in horror, “you’ve lived here longer than me.”

“Ah.” Kimberly dug her trowel to the upturned soil beneath her boots, meaning to climb out of the dugout and remove her gloves, setting her groundwork for the garden aside. At the least it provided a decent reason for the Power Rangers frequenting the abandoned mine. As if a herb, pumpkin, and cherry tomato garden would divert investigations elsewhere. It was a hopeful shot. “Want me to check?”

Another blast sounded, so near when it was far; a brass instrument, then, the loudest of all the instrument families. Trini shook her head. “I’m gonna.”

“All right,” Kimberly said. “I’ll be right here. Siri?…”

Trini skipped her way to the source, hands in her sweatshirt pockets, her enhanced strength powering her gait into long leaps that pounded spurs of dust from the ground. As the sound grew near, she slowed to a stroll and narrowed her sights to a figure in the distance.

“Visitors” should have been expected when Angel Grove authorities made it clear the mine was sealed away until further notice, that it was a temporary discouragement for the explorers, nature lovers, and just as intrigued teenagers drawn to their intergalactic defenders. A good thing neither of them caught the notice of anyone else when they slipped in and out, and she didn’t want to entertain the possibility of confinement nor questioning the first time she would. Nevermind that it hadn’t happened yet; it was in due time.

But Trini never witnessed someone would make it so obvious. Maybe because trumpet players tended to be loud and proud as Kimberly’s tendency to try backflipping off anything as frequently as Zack did jumping jacks, or that someone couldn’t resist playing for the open sky in the mostly preserved environment around the mine. Marching band had open slots, as she had heard in passing.

And they sounded great. She uncurled her hands from her pockets as she approached.

Their hands were wrapped around a rose gold trumpet, gleaming as they shifted keys, brass tones percolating the air in exuberant swiftness. If it were any louder, she could bet the ground would shake along with her chest cavity. It pulled at her gut. She compacted her into herself, much more nervous to disrupt the person as they tossed their long tawny curls and played on with their left hand. Breathing through her mouth, she pressed on.

For Trini’s academic excellence with language, her acumen seemed to perish due to many inconveniences: imagined, real. Along the years, her hands, eyes, mouth, arms, brain had grown almost estranged–she hid it well, usually.

Gaping at the newcomer’s back was not a prime example.

Minutes must’ve crawled by before they set down their trumpet while Trini stood there, petrified. Their tank top drifted from a breeze, exposing more of her warm dark brown skin from the small of her back and stomach, bending down for a water bottle, long lashes turned to somewhere in the distance.

“Hey.” Trini said tightly, ready for an entry and exit.

No response came.

She kicked the inside of her leg, hard enough to bruise. “Too quiet,” she gritted out. “Hey…”

They jolted a bit in place, their gaze settling on her. They had bright brown eyes. A just as surprised smile on the day Trini and Kimberly had met took place of her frown. “Hey,” they replied. They gestured with their bottle to nowhere in particular. “You snuck in too, huh?”

On the outside, Trini certainly looked unresponsive, finding her words. Alas, they had went away like marbles. She nodded once, focusing on the space between their eyes. “With a friend.” she said finally. “Are you Tommy Oliver? I haven’t seen you before. But there was this one time in detention and–it really happened, that was last week ago, sorry–” she swallowed, “I’m Trini.”

“I remember!” they said, their smile deepening. Trini nodded and grimaced. They took a sip of water and went over. Behind them was a pair of viridian cases, a smaller one with pieces of a black instrument, the trumpet resting in the other. “I’m Tomiya, but you can call me Tommy. They sound different, but Tommy stuck, you know? It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Toh-mih-yah. Tomiya?” Trini said, testing it on her tongue. She looked at Tommy for approval. At their new smile, a knot in her shoulders loosened. That was a step in the right direction. “How long have you been here?”

“Two weeks ago? Just in time for the new year.” Tommy exhaled a laugh. “My parents–they shooed me out the house before I overworked myself helping them.”

Trini smiled. She’d meant how long Tommy had been in the mine, but she didn’t want to sound like an interrogator when they both had separate things to tend to, her stuffing down words in the way one would try filling a sieve with sand.

Apart from most of her interactions with Kimberly, words failed her in a typical fashion, so she couldn’t get why she still found disappointment when she tripped over her words.

Kimberly. Was she looking for her? Or still waiting for her? Which was better? Was either just as fine as the other?

“So you brought a trumpet and woodwind over to a faraway mountain?” she managed to string together.

“So I did,” Tommy said. “Better than getting a noise complaint in the young morning, you know. Anyway, what are you and your friend doing in these parts?”

“Ohuhm.” Trini blinked away from Tommy’s eyes. “Gardening?”

Tommy stared at the cracked ground, assessing it with as much doubt as Trini had in her word. Per usual, she craved existential removal. Or a reset.

“Speaking of gardening, I’m going to check on my friend. Kimberly. Hart?” She jerked a thumb backwards.

“That her?” Tommy said, pointing with her bottle.

Trini shifted round slowly.

A tiny blob, growing in definition (she knew another kind Zack would mention), waggled what probably was an arm at them.

Trini waved then turned back. “Yeah.”

“I know Kimberly–my neighbor. Does she lift?” Tommy grinned.

“Her?” Trini repeated. “Uh, sure, yeah. I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Because I’m gay and I would remember her abs anywhere,” she could have said.

She simply shrugged, smiling. “Tommy, what are you playing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u want a faceclaim, tommy oliver would be raykeea wilson! aka angel haze  
> i hc them as nonbinary trans with they/them and she/her pronouns


	3. Who is the adventurous eater?

“I’m going to eat it all. ‘I can go the distance, I don’t care how far.’ The only exception would be if it could give me food poisoning.” Trini grimaces and lowers her voice. “I’m not going to say no more about that because it’ll look like I’m insulting the food here.”

Kimberly nods. “But you eat my cooking.” she points out.

Trini stares down, her brows furrowing.  “I do. What’s wrong about that?” she says.  “You’re getting better with every dish.”

“Ah, Trini.” Kimberly smiles at her empty plate.  She flushes.

“It’s the truth.”

“Mhm.”  

Trini scoffs and wags her head, shrinking adorably as Kimberly propped her chin on her hand, leaning closer.  “Believe in your cooking, Kimmy.” she mutters.  The dinner smatter around them does little to distort Trini’s words.  

‘Tita Perlas’, a family-owned restaurant, is somewhere in Kimberly’s side of Angel Grove.  To substitute snacks from the joint sari-sari store, a place of general goods of good condition that’s saved Kimberly the occasion of running to big brand names, Trini’s been dragged willingly inside, and for a full half hour, they’ve waited for the seats for two at the corner.  For cutlery, they have a spoon in place of a knife.  Kimberly swirls the decanter of alkaline water and cucumbers, watching it funnel along while Trini builds a script off the menu, reciting the dishes in silence.

“Sa tingin ko ang dalawang ay mga magandang girlfriends.” Someone sing-songs up from behind Kimberly.  

Connie, the waitress.  She doesn’t know a lick more of any Filipino language, but she can recognize the words to ‘two' and 'good'.  Even to strangers, it’s palpable.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear with iceberg speed and drills the pair of holes into the nearest dish with her eyeballs, her face a sudden furnace.  Eyeing Trini’s lips turns a bit into a dare.

Trini glances up, worried.  

“Are you ready?” Kimberly asks.

“Can you speak for me, please? Just tonight.” Trini whispers.

Kimberly reaches across to squeeze her hand.  “It’s no problem.” she gently insists, taking Trini’s phone to study the words.  The color gradient format helps her thread the letters into words faster, and with Trini, she knows them soft and clear.

“Oo meron chemistry naman.” Another waitress says.  “Sige, tama na! Babalik sa trabaho.”

“Siyempre.” Connie laughs.  She turns to them, notepad drawn.  

Within minutes, Kimberly orders the food for Trini and herself.  It’s a good night.  Between sips of lychee juice and appetizers of calamari and fresh lumpia, they eat a lot, much more than expected.  

The bill’s manageable.  Regrets hanging in the evening chill on their departure are found nowhere, and when Trini gestures off-handedly to the sari-sari store for packaged seconds, they go for it.  

Kimberly’s pleased to say the night is worth adding to the books.  She’s going to paste her photos of the night in one of the family’s albums and stare adoringly at them like the sucker she is.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought bc filipinos are like the second largest asian minority in the us, like california (and in alaska too lol Wtf), and angel grove is (probably) set in california, i thought a few businesses in angel grove are filipino-owned. sari-sari stores are like family-owned general stores where you get food and supplies, and "tita perlas'" is based off of tito rad's grill. rock fact: filipino is a gender-neutral language :D
> 
> attempted translation (not fluent in it yet, def messed up the grammar and word choice orz):
> 
> "i think the two are good girlfriends" (edit: changed by the suggestion of shuffle-puff.tumblr.com!)
> 
> "yeah, there's chemistry" (naman adds emphasis) "okay, enough! back to work"
> 
> "of course" (siyempre differs from siempre, since it means "always" in spanish)


	4. Who hogs the covers at night?

(Somewhere, someone curled in bed, slack as a stone, wide awake.  A flux kept her from sealing her eyes and dropping off, and for the next hour, she trekked to the mines to float in a pool at the height of night.  

Kimberly had told her this in a wondrous tone, and Trini had almost, almost, explained.)

First came the airtight container prototype with dimensions comparable to a child, not that they had measured an actual one beforehand–Trini had taken a new height marking from one of her brothers, and Billy had filled in the rest.  Next, the notes.  Then there were the damaged chalkboards they had brought beyond the barrier with pulley systems, gathered from a classroom full of them that were to be sent out on the curb.  It took mending of the wheels and replacing of the wooden frames to put them back in shape.

Schoolwork, life, and training notwithstanding, they had a tent cozied between the Pit and the Dinozords in six hours, comprised of two sleeping bags, Billy’s second spare set of tools, library books Trini kept in the big baggies like she did since kindergarten, fruit snacks, granola bars, a vase, seed packets, a rough translation of Alpha’s notes at work, a candid shot of particular persons, newspapers, more essentials, alien tech, human tech, another tent, and a tent.

And Billy and Trini happened to like tents in assorted colors; red and pink for expansion, and a grey-rippled pattern one they for now produced results in, kept upright with hole-punched stones.  It was a thrilling process to get it together, after homework, willing to have a warmer space and a buffer for when their houses couldn’t provide.

On the nights they took residence in the Pit, Trini too would confide to Billy on matters concerning the heart behind the flaps of the tent.  She listened to him in kind, and when neither were up to anything verbal of the like, they sat in perfect silence.  They sat in perfect silence with country music.  They sat in perfect silence with death metal.

And sometimes when they would sit in perfect silence, they felt the true synchronicity of the morphing grid.  Nebulous was all they could say to describe it, but they tried, in Billy sharing sketches and Trini handing him lyrics and her voice.  These times were not spent in total absence of Kimberly, Jason, and Zack, of course, and sometimes their work required the use of their tents, in total enthusiasm and without, seeking the pulse to work at full-throttle.

Their intrepid side-project had had its curves, edges, too–all lessons, and it didn’t finish overnight.  Trini had found it an enduring trial, but Billy was her co-worker in the effort.  Because Billy focused on the mechatronics and Trini had a mostly, if not all, comprehensive understanding of biology, they were imbalanced by Alpha’s help presented in extraterrestrial jargon, supplies, and nurturing.  Getting anything started took about a week after they were nursing their wounds, as well as revising routines around it, but they saw a bottom line.  It was achievable.

(“Achievable in your lifetime, too!” Alpha had also said.

Billy and Trini looked at each other.  "Um,“ she said.

“That wasn’t supposed to come out morbid, right?” Billy asked.

“No, I’m so sorry, no! Your technological advancements make it possible, aiyiyi.  You two demonstrate the knowledge for this, I can assure you.”

“Okay,” Trini said.  Alpha clapped their hands together before they went on their way, called by what was a frequency Zordon used to summon them.

“They remind me of an uncle,” Trini said wistfully.

“Yeah.”

Billy checked his watch and Trini looked at the tent.   “Should we break out the fruit gummies…?“ she asked.

“Couldn’t get any this week, they’re out.” Billy apologized.  "I got graham bears instead.“

“Love those. Say I buy chocolate milk, and hurry my way back here?” Trini smiled as he frowned, no doubt disliking the idea of her going outside so late at night, nevermind they practiced against putties on a daily basis and could withstand some of the worst of forces.  

“I have a flashlight,” she offered.  "The big ones that can zap you in the eyes and you can’t see anything for a coupla seconds.“ She began to shuffle backwards.

“Okay, but stick to the main streets! No shortcuts on the empty ones!” he said pointedly as she started for the water barrier.

She shouted her thanks over her shoulder, zipping her wallet up extra tight.

“I haven’t kept in contact with him,” she told him much later when asked.  “He had a surgery, my dad had almost enough to cover his brother’s bill–and my dad tried to get my mother to contribute, she has a way high-end job, which is why we move a lot.  She didn’t, and my dad…. he’s all and well–my uncle–but my dad hasn’t heard from him since.”)

They had succeeded the Power Rangers of old, the remnants of who had been legions.  And while the Power Coins had merged with them in a seamless process, the preternatural qualities didn’t cancel out their daily requirements as humans.  From them, they had a higher metabolism.  They were more durable.  They could not get sunlight in an underground cavern at every given day.

The darkness that enshrouded their group, that underscored their separation from distraction, refining their abilities to instinct like the snap of a nanometer-thin string, left much to be desired–and that was where Billy, Trini, and Alpha came in.  

Now, while without a way to get Sunny Day patented without needlessly unforgiving interrogation from the government, especially from the new “government”, it was feasible to experiment and manage it within the Pit.  Unanimously, Sunny Day was a good trade-off to wi-fi.  They had planned to perfect it with redesigns on the side before the nights grew longer than the days, before the chill pervaded right down through the ground.

Fall wasn’t on its last legs yet, but Trini had it known the invention should come with changeable heating, being a sturdy portable thingamabob to have, something free of charge to combat seasonal affective disorder, waterproof, and maybe a toasting feature. Billy was iffy on the last bit–they were trying to avoid the accidental creation of a solarbeam, and making a failsafe it it came to one, anyway.  

Their first try more or less resembled a super-heated table tennis ball they kept safe in a pedestal, isolatedly controlled by a device Billy had made with an extraterrestrial alloy and a circuitry of his own design.  The second was larger, tougher and could be held within two hours of extended use, the third a basketball’s size (and bounced like one too).  They had a lantern built for that.  All the toil went behind Kimberly and Jason and Zack’s backs, or so they preferred to believe, and Trini learned a lot, much of a lot to do about welding in that time.

The fourth presented itself a new challenge as they approached the second marking period.  All things considered, having a gravity field with its own calculated revolution and rotation caught her in full-fledged gushing when Billy presented it to her from the depth of his backpack, them scrambling at Kimberly’s notice.  Or Zack’s.  Or Jason’s–the entire peas in a pod, in truth.    

(“Behold, pants,” Trini said shortly, after a quick shift through Billy’s backpack, careful not to jostle Billy nor his materials.  Zordon’s language laid at the tip of her tongue, but that would ring bells and she really did not want to ring them, so she exchanged a look with Billy and then the rest with extreme reluctance.  

Wonderful chance, to have been cornered at school day’s end.  She was equal parts excited and reserved in showing the rest of the team their project, but now the desire getting it done as flawless as possible made itself known as a neon sign below bootleg fireworks.  

“Only pants?” Kimberly prompted unhelpfully.

“Yes.” Trini insisted.  “These are new.” She shoved them below Kimberly’s nose, knowing better than to let her actually sneeze on them.  

“I got them last week?” Billy said.  “From a sale.”

Trini nodded.  “Quality.  What does it take for one like me to appreciate good pants in peace? I mean, look how deep these pockets are!”

“Can I have my pants back?” When she returned it to him, he whispered into her ear, “This is cutting it too close.  We need to leave.”

“What do we do?”

Jason cleared his throat.  “Guys, what’s–”

“Tag, you’re it!” Billy cried, tapping Trini on the shoulder before bolting out the front door.  

A vital split second later, Trini’s feet moved on their accord faster than her mind could work, running in tandem with Billy.  It was like that for a half hour, and they were on Kimberly’s side of the town by then, somewhat lost.

“I–feel so–lame,” she had puffed out after they scaled a building and lied down beside him on the roof, texting out an apology to Kimberly, Zack, and Jason in the group chat.  

“It was our flight response, the most we could do,” Billy replied in short bursts.  “What’s more to follow our instincts?”

“But it’s like a physical manifestation of how I resolve conflict.” She wrung her hands.

Billy didn’t try to soften the admission, only nodding.)

With the fourth test date’s rapid approach, their teammates the impetus of their work, they picked out odd hours, going as far as to stowing parts in their homes to at least gain bits of progress.  

And maybe Kimberly noticed.  She noticed much about Trini; it terrified and relieved her, like when she had set her phone to airplane mode whenever she headed down the odd hour, keeping that up for a few nights, then had a mini heart attack with Billy the next, clinging to the stalactites on the complete stone ceiling as Kimberly arrived for her unpredictable departures with her Pterodactyl Dinozord.  Then the other time with Zack in tow, where Billy had threw up a tarp at a shadowy corner and Trini dove after him, barrel-rolling over displaced rocks upon Alpha’s warning.  Kimberly’s sleep-deprived yammering about the geography of several South Asian countries, had at least, explained the souvenir Kimberly plonked onto her desk first thing the next morning, the sloppy kiss on the corner of her lips, before tripping her way to her seat.  Trini had added it to her “cherish” storage later that day.

Eyes caught movement quicker than stillness when Trini hid a piece of alien alloy for the prototype’s internal mechanism in her mouth because Kimberly had rung the doorbell–on the rare occasions Trini’s mother would be out for a full day–and her pillow had been the perfect hiding place, and the taste of the thing stayed with her well after her third honeydew popsicle.

(The time Trini fell into a bush when Kimberly said, “Some sunny day, right?” and it took Kimberly falling along, fussing over her for minutes, to realize it was a remark on the weather.)

All was sorely worth it.  

Misadventures, mishaps, and some (some) misdemeanors–all was worth it.  They were at the last inch now, the final day culminating to a solid halt in their work.

* * *

 

“Have you ever had a lullaby sung to you?” Trini had asked Billy once upon the time, mouth around a chocolate wafer stick.  

They sat just below the water barrier, viewing the moon and cumulus clouds caught in the reflection of a satellite-round glass, lawn chairs framing their sleeping bags apart from the grit of the sand.  The fourth Sunny Day drifted in orbit around them, its opacity generated from a mixture of gases.  Most of the time she reserved her thoughts to distort or resolve, but with Billy and Alpha and Zordon around, she felt safe.  Here she laughed without abandon, and here, she cried without chastisement.  All her moments here were realized and validated to the fullest as they could be.  

“That came out of the blue,” Billy said.  Trini’s lips twitched at that.  “Why? Are you drowsy?”

Trini shifted in place, gaze still fastened to the moon, intending to brush it off, but a yawn strained through her cupped hand.  No longer could the thought count as flyaway.  

She fit a second wafer into her mouth.  “So, have you?”

“More than a handful.” Billy replied.  He eyed her expectantly as she whittled the wafers to nothing like sawdust.  

Trini gulped it down.  “My dad would? He doesn’t with my brothers, sucks ‘cause they’re missing out.  And my mother, she never,” she almost spat.  Her mouth burned with a new wafer, and she chased it with a sip of water, receding into her bag, flopping an arm over her eyes.  

“My mom’s a great singer, she could sing you some if you’d like.” Billy pressed his palms flat together. “I forgot! If she calls tonight, will you play music in the background?”

Trini nodded.  “Anything for you, Billy.” But she wouldn’t go for metal tonight.  

Appealing as the acoustics in the cavern were, she rather wanted the thrum of a guitar swaying her to sleep.  Or, a hand tracing soft crescents at the insides of her wrists, curving lips moments away from pressing to the nape of her neck, and eyes of warm earth, copper and cinders, her voice a tidal wave, a murmuring brook.  

An old rot, her longing burrowed deep like arrows in her gut, sapped the strength of her idling, sharpening her focus to her hand clenched to her forearm. Burning and numb, she couldn’t choose.  She shifted in place, inspecting the indents along her forearm and ignoring the ache in her back.

“Trini?” Billy asked.  She glanced up, meeting him square in the eyes.  His were towards her discomforting array of fidgeting digits, non-judgmental, genuinely concerned for her feelings.  

“Here,” Trini breathed.  “What’s up?”

“Let’s talk about something else.  Crushes? Anything for you.”

Trini chuckled.  Diversion.  That pacified a bit of the pain.  “Thanks, Billy.  Am I to go first?”

Billy just leaned backed in his lawn chair, a knowing smile on his face.  

“Oh-kay.”  

Three times and forty, she had to muster the courage to speak about crushes every time.  Her lips were zipped about these sorts, and seventeen years of existence avoiding it in her daily go-about as a mystified teenage fog could supply her argument to keep it that way, but there wasn’t any wicked bone in Billy, and he believed she didn’t, too, as much as it was denied.  Not another living being were to hear of what left her mouth that night, thankfully, because feelings! Fucking feelings.  She had enough of those combusting in her face in her formative years.  Emotions that broke out across her skin–left her barren.  She didn’t have much choice, that she could say the same for her Power Coin’s color.  

“Okay.  Billy? Kim’s wonderful and I always tell you this.”

“Sure do.”

For sure her predecessor was the jolliest and she wasn’t living up to their legacy, but she tried, with feelings, and with feeling.  

“I’m going to need more details,” Billy said.  “You had a blast?”

“Not the kinds you have, but–this whole week.” Trini took a deep breath.  “She, her mom and I went to have my wisdom teeth taken out, and…she was so kind to let me sit out the pain at her house after I stopped my loopiness and got short-tempered because–my mouth.” Billy laughed.  “I’m not much of a potty mouth, okay! But it was an experience.  I, I had a date with her at this restaurant too and she ordered for me because my vocal cords weren’t cooperating at all–we went to an aviary, we took to the beach, we started the dugout here–this,” she sighed, gesturing about, “can slip away anytime.”

“Attachments aren’t common for you.” Billy said.

“Yeah.” Trini nodded.  “This’s supposed to be normal, right?”  

“Not that we found them at a young age.” They both laughed self-deprecatingly.  “I feel it’s cool with you, Trin–Zack too.  Kimberly and Jason are new to it, it’s not wrong,”

“But we know?” Trini guessed.

“Absolutely! No one is an island, love is not a disease, and we are the Power Rangers.  This can’t be a coincidence.”

Trini chuckled with another wafer in her mouth.  “It’s nice to feel appreciated.”

“And with Kimberly too, right?”

“Jason Lee Scott?” Trini retaliated, giggling when Billy folded his hands and stared at the ground with a dreamy smile.  “Squirt.”

“I’m eleven inches taller than you!” he cried, but he was still smiling.  “All right, all right! You all satisfied with this mess? Then who hogs the covers?”

Trini cupped her ears.  “What?” She dodged a pebble half-heartedly lobbed at her, giggling some more.  “Kim! It’s Kim. You?”

“Jason!”

“Buttholes,” Trini grumbled, trying to hold herself together.  

She cracked up anyway.  She almost choked on her wafer stick, but she kept on anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> billy and trini brotp gives me life okee + billy and trini gushing about their crushes


	5. Who forgets to do the dishes?

Kimberly had snapped her fingers many multiple times that Trini could list beyond a dozen things played in its beat between the margins of her calculus homework. The sound fastened Kimberly to the present, or for today, an issue.

It came up again minutes later when Kimberly arrived from her bedroom after pacing out of it, face pinched. Trini stopped writing and uncurled her legs to the floor. “Kimmy, d’you need anything?”

“No thank you,” Kimberly wagged her head slightly, still snapping her fingers as she sat beside her, staring at her photos taped across the walls. She passed a hand through her hair, tossed by the wind and her own ruffling, and Trini’s stare was probably too overt by then, but she kept to it.

Deft hand strokes against that head, guaranteed to soothe them both, inserted itself in Trini’s checking quest for the areas under the curves. She read the same check again….five times.

“Okay.” she mumbled, lifted her pencil from the near shatter of its graphite and brought the eraser to her nose. She brushed eraser bits to the floor, set down her homework and picked up the dishware, because she was good like that. “I’m going to wash these.”

“You don’t–this is my place–” Kimberly snapped her fingers, “Oh! Let me,” she smiled, touching Trini’s shoulder. She scooped the things from her hands, speeding out of sight. Trini had a second of her practically falling the way downstairs.

Now she couldn’t breathe subconsciously. Trini treated that like any other inconvenience: she smiled big and wrote “I’m screwed” on the work space and sat it out.

No–she then lied down and covered her face with her hands.

“Oh my god,” she mumbled after what seemed like hours. “She is so wonderful.”

The bed rustled.

“Aw, thank you!” Kimberly said from her right, hand gracing her side.

Trini jolted. A thud of groaning wood sounded; she scrambled up. “Oh my god.”

Kimberly laughed. “My stomach! It hurts so much!”

Trini hooked an arm each behind Kimberly’s legs and head, picking her up in a panic. “I’m sorry!” she blurted, certain her face burned.

“Aw, babe–” Kimberly wheezed in consolation, throwing her arms around Trini’s neck. She resumed coughing.


	6. Who tries to surprise their partner more often?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is vENGEANCE for emilyrambles against hearden's seventh chapter of legacy of power  
> *insert gif elmo with inferno in the bg here* *shakes fist*

‘how to counteract effects of g force’

“A HYDRAULICS THEORY ON ALIEN ROBOT: HOW IT SLAPPED THE WOMAN OUT OF ORBIT AND MORE (COMMENT BELOW WHERE YOU THINK SHE IS NOW) hollyju4ngco (979,076 Views)”

‘waterproof phone cases’

‘tommy oliver’

‘cats’

‘dogs’

‘cats and dogs’

‘tits and boobies birds”

‘pink’

‘no;’

‘color pink’

‘the other love story roopa rao revry’

‘ohiw od i s’

‘how do i stopp’

‘how do i stop leg bouncing;’

‘california krispy kreme locations’

‘california krispy kreme locations +angel grove’

‘bagels’

‘beluga whales’

‘”Aliens are illegal aliens,” says White House Press Secretary,’

‘”Angel Grove’s relief effort was assisted by the anonymous defenders, and it is a blatant contrast to the so-called support of our ‘President’.” Read More’

Kimberly’s phone vibrates.

Without prompting, her hand flies to the touch screen, halting at the final second, holding her breath. She lightly taps it on. Standing from her desk, she stumbles to the bathroom and flicks the bedroom light off on the way out.

The long hand of the clock above the mirror is past two, and she blinks harder than usual around their dryness, pressing her hands into the small of her back for a good stretch. She splashes water on her face, caring little for damp hair.

Time pulls a yawn from her lips; it draws the line, but she hasn’t finished yet anything that makes her want rest. She will not deign tossing and turning.

She stills, expecting movement outside the bathroom. 

Nothing.  Good. 

Water. Heading to the stairs, she swings her legs over the railing and catches the ends of them, dangling before she lands to the first floor with a bounce.

She’s on her first glass and third almond brittle when the phone in her sweatpants pocket hums again, startling her to remember. She chugs the rest down and takes the second up with her.

‘i might not come to prac. afterschool’, reads Trini’s text.  Then, ‘i always will for saturday, for tom, no. are all of you okay with that? no need for answer i will take Read for yes”

Kimberly’s head throbs as she rereads the group chat, back propped up by a bundle of folded blankets, body rolled snug into a plush comforter.

Ten minutes have flown by since it was sent. Trini tries not to stay up after midnight, and goes out like a light by working through her work with little break, the daylight her guide, breathing a routine she says is growing as old as a year.

The streak’s been broken.

She switches to her and Trini’s chat. ‘read it loud n clear. how are u doing? do u want to talk?’ 

She stares.  She presses send.

‘mood:’ Trini replies immediately with a gun emoji, ‘burned out bcuz of my mother. ill get better. just’

The text’s sent prematurely. Or not; Trini’s still typing.

Kimberly inhales long and deep, then nudges the blanket off like the top half of a burrito, absently pulling a piece of square paper from a pad of them. She makes smooth folds with her shaking hands, long used to its process even in the near dark, making them permanent by creasing her fingernails against them on the blanket.

She almost has a yellow pterodactyl and a pink tiger to go with it when Trini sends, ‘jus wantn to krecupertae.

i dont aanf to be alone’

‘i’m here for u, trini’, she types.

Trini’s speech bubbles for a few seconds or so.  Kimberly slips her new origami to the growing pile in her nightstand drawer.

‘than you kim. im so sorry for tellihgb you ao late thia wont happeb aagain’

‘my home is a safe place, okay? if u need somewhere to go, u can have my parents’ numbers too, u can come here anytime’

‘thnak you. il try to go to aleep now. is that okay?’

‘yes it is :) go chase those zs, tiger’

‘haha’

Kimberly brightens, if for a while.

‘you to go sleep’, Trini sends without a hitch.

‘gotta do two more bio questions’

‘no

sleep now’

‘ok ok

u are so sweet’

‘oh my god

get of f my case, pal,

you make e feel better tho thank you’. Trini’s anxious yet heartfelt trail-off passes through her, and she smiles.

‘gal pal?’

‘now i ferl worse’

’;)’

‘kim

kim stop it

we are dating

oh my god

see you?’

‘see u

we’re here for u’

‘thank you

gudnight…’

She sets her phone in its charger and lies down, staring at the ceiling blankly.  She can’t just sleep with her thoughts still so active that they will encroach the contentment she’s gathered for now, solidify the shadows that she should be able to slip into, burning her eyes with sheer light.

Running outside at this time is against her better judgment, but she stuffs her feet into socks and the boots she can run in anyway.  In her momentary lapse, she sheds them off to put on her running gear, mending the process before she takes off at a brisk pace to the mountain and back.  Trini lies in her thoughts, the perfect silence.  

She returns to her room with a ragged start for her window, somersaulting through and stopping just before her back crashes through the wall.  One stare at her closet reminds her to lay out a pair of black jeans, a white tee, her moto jacket, a pink sweatband, and a tank underneath for the coming day.  Scrawling a few ideas on a sticky note she’s sure as hell will try to read, she flops back onto the bed. That leaves her little to dwell on when she drifts in and out, then finally, all together. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Focusing takes all that’s in Kimberly not to rush over to her in the morning, forcing herself to a leisurely walk down the hall, avoiding freshman and sophomores and juniors and other seniors.  Her feet throb with light blisters.  Without her powers she might’ve felt like she’s walked among caltrops, but she’s mostly intact.

Trini’s in dialogue with Billy when Kimberly and most of the student body spill from the entrances, seated on the side.  Zack is on the other side, applying pressure to her back as if to ground her there.  Her always present grey beanie is gone from her head–bunched in the pocket of her backpack, and her head is dipped low, lifting her chin only when she signs back to Billy.  Her movements are limp and pale compared to the dark vitality of his feedback, full of concern and enshrouding warmth. 

“Hey,” Kimberly says once she reaches them, nestling outside of their row of protection.  “It’s good to see you.”

Trini glances to her, meets her eyes.

Kimberly freezes, the air ripped from her throat.  They’re _vacant_.  It’s like from the pain, she’s been pulled elsewhere to anywhere but here, but she’s stubbornly holding on, the straps of her backpack digging into her shoulders as she removes it, signing briefly to Billy before starting her way over.

The loose arms around Kimberly take time to register.

Hints of chamomile, mint, and rosemary meet Kimberly as she pulls Trini closer, enveloped in herbal revitalization, the sort that Trini would explain its properties, waxing history with as much deliberate understanding as Billy does with mechatronics and a few of his other special interests, brandishing fresh leaves under Kimberly’s nose to learn.  Trini’s still miffed about the fact Kimberly sneezed on her arm when she tapped a nostril with a hibiscus leaf once.

“Trini?” Kimberly asks.

“Shh, I’m trying to get oxytocin,” Trini rasps.

Kimberly makes a hum of acknowledgement.  She adjusts the hold into a hug, head lying onto Trini’s shoulder.  Trini presses into her in almost complete vulnerability.  

Her warmth seeps through Kimberly’s clothes.  Slowly, slowly, she lets her jaw slacken, letting out one big breath as she pulls Trini closer. 

She feels late.

Zack and Billy stay in front of them as a buffer, their guarded eyes redirecting any person intending to push through them to pass to the side, boulders branching a rising river at the start of spring.  

As the tension in Trini’s shoulders dissipates, Kimberly separates them slowly, trying to rub the ache she must feel out of them, looking at anywhere but her face, because believe it or not, Trini takes those in small portions.

“I feel like I inhaled all the cigarette smoke in New York City,” Trini states quietly, leaning into her touch.

“She has a migraine,” Billy says.

Zack purses his lips, cocking his head to the side.  “Did you read her text?”

“Yes,” Kimberly says.  Trini shifts out of her arms, whispering her thanks as she sits again with a sigh.

“Well, she isn’t going home anytime soon, and she’s pretty spent too, that’s why we’re,” he gestures to himself and Billy, “talking a bit for her.  You know how her–how she is.”

Actually, Kimberly doesn’t know the _extent_ of how she is, but she doesn’t ask.  Not here.  She removes her fists from her moto jacket’s pockets, tucking a loose strand behind her ear, trying to smile but failing miserably.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Just say 'mother', it doesn’t make a difference,” Trini mumbles.

Billy stands up.  “Trini, you okay with leaving this at that?”

Trini nods.

“Jason’s running late with lab work afterschool, so Zack and I are going to the Pit first.  But y’all can call us anytime.” He glances at Trini, raising his arms slowly.  

She visibly stumbles before she completes the hug.  Zack and Kimberly join as well, all but squeezing, trying to dog-pile her in it without knocking her down.  She makes an incomprehensible grumble, but adds an “I love you all” with just the slightest tremble.  

Kimberly watches Billy and Zack make off to the Pit with enthusiastic waves that can take out funnel cake stands or a Putty’s limb.  Five down to four down to two, she watches them leave for a considerable distance apart, more than ready to shorten that divide in an explosive sprint away.  

She watches two of few that Trini cherishes greatly depart.  As much as her words avoid it, her actions are what speaks.  

When Trini nudges her, encouraging her to search her eyes, she finds them in red and puffy saddened slits.  “The boys are right,“ she mumbles, “I don’t want to go home…my brothers and dad are still there, but–she left today.  For today.  I just can’t stand staying the night there.  He understands.”

“Do you want to go to my place?” Kimberly says with startling clarity, given her sinuses.

“…Yeah.”

“I’ll help you unwind there, then I’ll go get us some pizza and drinks, how about it?”

“I’ll just go there.”  

“But–”

“It saves time…I know exactly where to go.”

Kimberly frowns.  “Are you sure? I don’t have my van, but, it’ll still be safer if I’m with you.”

“I can make the walk,” Trini insists.  Her smile is especially fragile.  “Remember to put pineapples on my slices, Kimmy.”

“…Okay.” 

She watches her go.  

She watches her go, receding into the shade of the trees until she’s gone and given the head start.

Five down to four down to two, down to one.  Kimberly stuffs her hands into her jacket and sits.  

She recites the name of their orders off her head, even if she might forget later, clawing her fingers down the length of her legs.

Anguished tears trickle from her shut eyes to her aching jaw, grieving Trini is in this state.  Her fists are clenched into themselves and far from harming anything else.

“Pizza first, thoughts later.” she whispers harshly, stuffing her hands into her pockets so hard that they might just punch through.  She descends the steps.

 

 

* * *

 

 

At the pizzeria though, keeping her thoughts undivided don’t work as seamless as planned.  

Halfway through adding that Trini’s pizza has to have pineapple chunks on hers to the cashier, lightning blots her vision, the results of clashing hot and cold fronts, and the snarling thunder follows swiftly. Then a deluge spills from altostratus–or altocumulus?–clouds coating the dry parking lot asphalt and the windows.

Kimberly glares through the ceiling after recounting her pay for the pie, going for a swivel seat to kick and spin in.  Water is second nature for her.  But of all days to get a storm, it’s when Trini’s skin is at its rawest.  The cold is the furthest thing she needs now.  

Kimberly hopes she’s inside now.    

She wishes the world to be fair.  Fair as accessing all colors across the spectrum, not one white ellipses after another to exert their influence to all of creation of their concern.  Damn perfections.  Damn models.  Damn the adults who do this to their children.  Damn the cycle, damn it until it’s broken.   Damn Trini’s idea that she’ll be like her mother, or that she’s one stop closer.  

Damn it all.  Loneliness is as measurable as chemicals can be, but loneliness, in a world full of humans is impossible made possible, is one of the worst truths she’s ever had to learn.  She can only be beside her while picking up from where last off was.  Just without soggy pizza, as she requests a foil to cover the box.

She runs through the storm, pizza box tucked precariously by the elbow, taking quick routes, well aware someone might see, but now, she has to be there _now_.  She slides to a stop by a deli to buy bottles of tea, vaults white picket fences, nearly trips her way down the mountain.

She’s about reached her home, soaked down to her converse squelching up the steps while she changes her grip on the box a hundred times. She pauses at the door sill, panting, to check if she still has her keys on her, as well as her phone (because she’s kept her second replacement as safe as she could, and the novelty of the I-accidentally-ran-over-my-phone-with-my-car-the-third-time-excuse is wearing down).

Her home’s entrance swings open as she digs around her jean pockets. She bristles, on auto-pilot.  “Hu chaale–”

Trini takes advantage of her surprise. The pizza box leaves her hands and a cloth is deposited onto her head so seamlessly in unison while her bag of drinks are extracted from her grip, and when Trini pulls down her moto jacket’s lapels, she stumbles, a shiver moving down her spine as Trini thoughtfully ruffles her hair with the cloth instead of pulling her into a searing kiss.  She shuts her eyes and leans into her caress, letting out a happy sigh.

“Hi,” Trini whispers once she’s done, curling a pink towel around her forearm. 

“Hey yourself,” Kimberly breathes, her voice low, and _whoa_ , she didn’t hear that coming.  Telling by Trini’s parted lips, her too.

“It started pouring, so I had half the mind to…this.”

Still panting, Kimberly leans against the back of a grey couch, nodding, parting her hair into its usual style.  “Thanks.” 

There is the mop and the cleaning mixture in its bucket next to the entrance.  Trini’s dry shoes are lined beside it.  All the lights are off, save for a pair of blinds across the staircase up casting murky reflections across the floor.  Papa and Mata aren’t home yet.  “Any trouble entering?”

“I managed.  I didn’t have the key, but I got the code, but…I lock-picked your door?”

“There was no other way,” Kimberly assures her with a smile.  “Teach me sometime?”

Trini shakes her head.  “You look too happy for someone that broke into your house.  Too gleeful about learning,” she says with a frown, poking her in the chest and wrinkling her damp tee.  

Kimberly lightly grips her wrist, keeping her there as she tosses the towel around her forearm onto a couch cushion, feels her shiver from the cold contact.  “As long as it’s you, I’ll be as happy as I can be.”

“Noted.  I’ll plunder your fridge next time and bring the loot to the boys.”

Kimberly chuckles.  She meets Trini’s eyes, raising a brow and listing her head to one side.  “Will you?”

Trini shakes her head.  “Too much work,” she whispers.  She steps so close that their fronts brush together.  

“How can I thank you again?”

“A key to enter? I don’t like the thought of getting in trouble for trying to visit my girlfriend.”

“I know that,” Kimberly says.  

“Bottled tea?”

Eyes flitting to the bag from the deli, then to Trini’s growing smile, her heartbeat arises, pulsing hard from the fringes of her mind.  “Can I kiss you?” she asks.

Trini wraps her arms behind Kimberly’s back in response.   

They press together tightly, mouths meeting in the darkness with little effort. With each kiss and touch, heat flares throughout her cheeks, her neck, below her waist and to her toes.  Her breath stutters every time they part.  The rare few times she lets herself lose air.  After all these months, Kimberly’s shown her preferences, and Trini knows how to dial them up.

Trini’s presence engulfs all else.  Her heady scent, flushed cheeks, deftness, pulls Kimberly to now, from Trini caressing the back of her neck to thumbing the belt loops of her jeans under her jacket to draw her even closer.  Standing against Trini, Kimberly’s hand on her waist, free one stroking her scalp down to her back and staying there–overwhelming; rain-plastered wet with hot hands dancing over her warming skin, backed into the couch and almost toppling over, struck breathless, eyes shutting as Trini noses her way to her collarbone and rests her cheek there, hands sliding to the slick lapels of her jacket, gently easing it off to her wrists that she strokes.  

Her touch and the friction pulls a gasp from Kimberly’s throat, as well as the light pressure of Trini’s thigh parting her legs.  More heat burgeons below the waist, her converse squeaking against the laminated floor as she steadies herself with a grip on the couch.  Trini smiles against her skin as her hands drop to grip her waist, pushing up the hem of her tee to hold her past its barrier, begins a series of kisses from her chest in a diagonal rise, and Kimberly breathes hard, her tongue clumsy, her mind in flux.  Trini’s distracting her, she knows it.  

Then Trini sets her feet atop her converse, rooting her there as she bites at her pulse point, and Kimberly nearly falls right then and there.  She trembles.  “Trini…” she whines, smiling in blissful agony, barely fitting the syllables together as Trini soothes her mark with tongue, who pauses to giggle, rubbing the small of her back.  She bites again, a little lower, and her breath catches, dips her head back, groaning.  Relentless.  “Fuck me.” 

“Later tomorrow?”

“Trini–” The words register and her skin burns impossibly hotter as she bites again.  Her hands fly in skittish disarray.  She nudges her cheek into Trini’s collarbone, arms gripping Trini’s shoulder blades, feels Trini’s questioning, irresistible, teasing hum.  

She knows.  She knows her.  The transition of two hours hasn’t been smooth.  There were underlying pains to seem not at all in pain.  It’s not as opaque as it seems, when one knows just as well how an aspect of life can change the thoughts of what’re needed into thoughts of what’re undeserved.  Trini would’ve turned on the lights now.  She wouldn’t have waited for the pizza, would’ve set her backpack aside inside the cubby below the first floor stairs, would’ve been splayed out one of the couches, making note of her soggy attire _then_ lunging for her hair with the towel.  

She definitely didn’t loot the fridge, either.  As Kimberly makes a noise of affirmation at the back of her throat, as Trini’s hand wanders to the collar of her tee and lightly scrapes down, ghosting the waistband of her jeans, worries crawl in.  Her chest aches for her alone.

She presses forward, finger tilting Trini’s chin to kiss her squarely on the lips long and hard, teasing her lightly with her tongue, then a quick one on her nose, curling her arms around Trini’s neck.  “I love you,” she breathes at last.  

There–if Trini hasn’t already figured out that all she’s done, all what she does, is fill her and all the others, and her words, caresses, her random acts of kindness, their time, her days and nights, and maybe, in space sometime, her hours, minutes, seconds, with forever a fullness she’s never known.  Her deep umber eyes.  The callouses in her finger-pads that matches hers, but older, older with guitar practice on her lap.  She loves her greetings.  She loves her departures if they mean she’ll meet her the next.  Their off-beat rhythm that runs smoothly in tandem between each other, she loves this.  Her.

And it’s hard when Trini’s there, and Kimberly tries, but she still just says nothing, says nothing at all.  

The streak's been broken today.

The light rubbing Trini’s administering to the small of Kimberly’s back ceases.  Her eyes open.  Her heart racing for a few new reasons, she parts her mouth. 

Trini catches Kimberly’s bottom lip before she can speak and bites down, prompting a groan at the back of her throat.  It’s swallowed by a kiss, draining the most of her breath,  and her legs nearly give way beneath her.  Again.  It often diverts her from present matters, but not today.  Trini’s vacant stare, her strangled eye contact, the way she withdrew inward after school–none has left her mind.  

“Hey,” she pants, cradling Trini’s face, gently tilting her chin upward, “did you hear me?”

Because she loves this.  Her as her.   

She’s certain Trini doesn’t agree.

“I did.” Her voice shakes, and the earth plunges from Kimberly’s feet, proven right.  How can’t she know?  “…It’s a lot to take in.”

“Yes,” Kimberly murmurs.

“Much happened today, too.”

Kimberly nods.  Trini shifts back, cool air replacing the width between Kimberly’s thighs, and she soon misses the contact.  Quietly, shes pushes Trini’s hair back behind her shoulders, catching her fingers in knots.

“Have you showered?” Kimberly blurts.  

“No.” Trini eyes her then the floor.  Her hands transfer to Kimberly’s belt loops, stoking the embers below her belly.  It goes declined.

“There’s a tub in the house.”

“You want me in it?”

“There’s a kit I got from two years ago.”  Any other time, Kimberly would drop a pickup line, laugh, or a particular gaze.  She tries not to fidget with her hair.  “I’ll get the water warm first, how about it? I’ll get your clothes arranged close to your reach, towels, the hair dryer or the window open if you prefer, ‘though I doubt it in this muggy weather…and if you want…I’ll help you clean up.” She cranes her neck to the side as she gauges Trini’s reaction.

When she frowns, her chest hurts.  She raises her hands slightly.  

Trini’s eyes widen in guilt.  “Sorry.”

“No,” Kimberly shakes her head, “I should be apologizing, Trini.  I-I don’t want to overstep your boundaries.” She swallows.  “I want to take care of you.”

“But you’ve already been doing that,” Trini says softly.  Her lips twitch.

Time waste, slow pace.  Why can’t she let go? Kimberly’s eyes squeeze shut.  “It doesn’t feel like it’s enough.” Drawing her breath takes excruciating effort.  She can’t say much more but seethe about her own incompetence and uselessness.   Their circumstances, the way she tries to quell the tears rising in her eyes and the trembling of her hands.  

She wishes it’s enough.

She wishes she is enough. She will stick around for a lifetime if need be, she’s already determined that’s what she will do, even if they break up later, because Trini deserves so much more.  She can’t stand seeing her like she seems to carry all of the earth’s weight by her lonesome, and shrug like it’s nothing, when she knows the wounds run deep and there is a pale light that shines on her everyday when she thinks Kimberly’s not noticed.

Or if not, if all of them are, to fade the bags beneath Trini’s eyes and put a bounce in her step like any other person.  

But maybe because Kimberly, a broken thing, are below of able to be of aid. She's not part of enough.

“Kimmy…Kimberly.  Hey.” Trini turns her head just so, kissing Kimberly’s palm, lets it keep cradling her, putting a shock through her system.  

Kimberly opens her eyes slowly.

“You are enough.  You’ve always been.  It’s just–it’s just a lot to take in, just like I said.  And I’ll do it.  Take a bath.  Will you lead the way?”

Trini smiles, and Kimberly’s chest seizes with tremendous emotion–it’s like the balm of a cool shadow in the thick of the searing bleakness of a world that rejects them.  The crumply, trodden bits of matter Kimberly calls her heart beats a mounting hum as a reminder.  

 

 

* * *

 

  

Kimberly fills the tub to it’s desired warmth and height then calls Trini in, and she appears, blue towel tucked to her chest, sheepishly examining her hair.  The braids on her right side are undone, drifting as she starts for the tub.  Kimberly rearranges the kit again as she slips into the water.

A sigh leaves Trini as the water gurgles with her movement.  Kimberly relaxes slightly.  She’s made sure it isn’t cold. 

When she turns, Trini’s dipped her head underneath, rising fully soaked.  Her eyelids are puffy.

Kimberly hesitates, then pulls up a stool beside it, shutting the bathroom door.  Rain pounds against the skylight and cuts silence short.  The green nightlight, shaped like a rose, plugged beside the granite vanity, shines softly on the white tiles, relaxing her eyes.  Her moto jacket, socks, tee and pants hangs from the knob of the cabinet, a towel on the floor catching the drops of water it leaves, and she’s just down to her undergarments and tank–not that Trini minds.  A change of Trini’s sleeping clothes and towel are on the vanity, as are Kimberly’s once she finishes.   

“Question,” Trini says while Kimberly hands her a bath bomb, oatmeal and honey.  They watch it dissolve in the water in her hand.  It evokes a scent easily telling with the humid air.

“Listening.”

“Ever heard or saw one of your parents cry before?” By the tone, Trini’s tried to make the question casual when the effort’s in vain.  

“Not out of sadness, no.” Kimberly pillows her face atop her arms, leaning against the rim of the tub to be at level with her.  “Never because of each other.  From what I know.”

“Excellent,” Trini says without a trace of sarcasm.

“Is it because…?”

“My dad? He was crying yesterday.”

“Ah,” Kimberly says.

“They wouldn’t tell me, but I figured it out, all right?” Trini dips her head and resurfaces.  “Then my mom left for a convention, so we’re on a tighter budget.  Just that, Kim.”

Kimberly frowns, kneading the skin of her forearm as something caustic itches in her throat.  Trini’s dad is a traditional and digital artist, and art supplies are especially expensive by when one’s only supporting themselves and young ones, as she’s learned from a few of her artistic cousins.  Creating is only harder when a spouse just stands by.

She’s seen them several times, more so since Trini introduced her one bad night.  They look older than their age should allow, but their smiles are soft in Trini’s rare selfies.  Their smiles are tender when in front of all their children, even when so worn down.  

Trini speaks of them with a calm glazed with bitterness of what should’ve beens.  It’s just not that.  It’s not.

Kimberly works her jaw and presses her cheek to the warming rim of the tub.  “Did she…take something?”

“She just rearranged my stuff while I was sleeping,” she replies, and Kimberly’s fingers knead her forearm harder, tempering her rage.  “With the excuse that everything was ‘disordered’, I don’t know how to organize.” Trini blinks rapidly.  She disappears underwater again for a few seconds longer.  Kimberly’s tearing the plastic from the shampoo when she lays a hand against her shoulder, an aching warmth against her pulse point.  “Deep breaths?”    

Kimberly shakes her head.  “Your mother is insidious.” 

Trini makes a noise of agreement.  

“I know you know, but all of this isn’t your fault.  She’s never deserved that title.  Your dad–they’re worth more than ten million moms like her!”  

“Yeah.” Trini breathes out a laugh, as if from relief.  “They are.”

“Want me to apply the shampoo now?”

Trini hums.  

Her hands bracket the rim of the tub as Kimberly massages her scalp gently as possible, afraid she’ll do more damage when in this state of mind, but Trini’s face is relaxed, leaning into her touch, humming and responsive.  Ease is a beautiful look on her, and infinitely more when she embodies it more often.  It’s impossible, she knows, but her dreams disagree.

Kimberly looks at the back of Trini’s head, seeking words.  She concedes with her bottom lip caught between her teeth because her tongue is clumsy.  Again.  She peeks at her face, almost dies in childish ecstasy at her broad smile unsullied by the bags drawn under her eyes, the rigid lines of her shoulders turned to loose slopes.  There’s no tension in her brows.

She loves her.

(She loves her.)

Trini stays still for the most part throughout it all, stirring to sink when Kimberly makes her aware she’s finished up with the conditioner.  Trini’s given soap and a scrubbing towel.  She turns when Trini unplugs the stopper to clear the dirty water and remove the dirt off her skin.  

“Kim?”

“Yes?”

“About Bio.  Last period was a wreck, so I skipped.”

“Don’t worry.” Kimberly smiles.  It’d hurt, but it’s over now.  “Where were you, though?”

“In the bathroom.  Tommy was with me.”

“Nice.”

“I’m gonna to use the shower head…”

“Make sure both curtain layers are pulled together!”

Trini makes a noise of assent.  The clicking of the clips holding the curtains sound as she covers herself from view, followed by the hiss of water.

Kimberly reorders the kit.  She quickly swipes the towel under her jacket to sweep stray droplets on the title before returning it to its original position, then grabs the stool to take to her bedroom.

She lets herself sit at the foot of her bed crisscrossed, checking her social media accounts as she waits for Trini to finishes.  It’s one step to a good typical day.  

She’s forgetting something.  “Hey,” she calls when she pokes her head into the bathroom, “want to watch something on Revry?” 

“And what would that be?” comes Trini’s muffled response.

“New streaming site for LGBTQ content.  I have a web series in mind,” she says.  She pushes damp hair from her eyes, tilting her head to Trini, remembering she can’t see.  Nerves stir a storm in her stomach.  “It’s the end of the weekday, my parent’s aren’t home, I’ve got snacks.  And dinner.  The pizza! Shit.  Um, I can turn up the room temperature by a few degrees if you want, we can watch on my bed, I’ll call your dad, Facetime with your little bros…cuddle with you.  I-I have a printout from today’s Bio lesson you can xerox to keep.  Would you like to?”

“Would I like to do all of that?”

“…Yes? Fuck, I’m all over the place.”

“I like it when you’re all over the place.” Trini says, and Kimberly flushes in pleasure, a flirty one-liner dancing on her tongue.  She’s silent.  Just two curtains separate them, and if it weren’t for her still soggy with leaves plucked from her hair, all it’d take for her to go in was an invitation.

“I mean when we’re making out!” Trini bursts from the other end.  “Not when you forget to take your meds and your symptoms are all over the place, that really messes with your focus and I shouldn’t make vague fun of–I’m sorry–”

“No, don’t be!” Kimberly reaches out; she purses her lips in dismay at the lack of contact.  She shakes her head and throws her head back, chuckling.  “I get it.  You like it when I’m all over you huh, Trin?”

“I can literally sense the winky face emote off you.”

“But do you like it?”

“Yeah, yeah, you can stop wiggling your eyebrows now.  Dios mio.  All right, I’m getting out.” The shower head stops hissing on cue.

“Need some help dressing your gorgeous bode, babe?”  

“Kim.  Please,” Trini says, and Kimberly smiles.  Oh, how the turntables…

 

 

* * *

 

 

Trini’s phone buzzes beside Kimberly as she and Trini set the table.  

She bristles; Trini has no ringtone for her mother.

“I’m not getting it.” Trini says between the clattering cutlery.  

“Okay,” Kimberly says immediately, taking pleasure in swiping the call out, setting it aside on the drawer across the longtable.  “Do you want me to open Revry on my laptop and start the show while we eat pizza? Or we eat and then Revry?” Pizza is pizza, but setting the table is integral to Kimberly’s meals.  It feels wrong when she doesn’t do it ever.  And she doesn’t like the idea of dripping pizza juice on one of the couches just three yards (she counted) away from the dining room, instead of onto the saffron tablecloth, tall chairs, and cutlery.  Trini doesn’t point out the extraneous use of it, either, for which she’s glad.  

She passes a hand through her almost-dry hair, working on a mild knot, stooping over her phone to see its percentage.  Turning, she glances back to Trini in her marigold dress and black shorts.  No sleeves with a skirt falling below her knees.  Every bare-footed step flares it out, like she embodies a part of a goddess, sworn to return it until she enters the ground.  And her hair is longer, brushing the top of back, outgrowing the brown dye to her natural dark.  She gathers it into a braid, sometimes. 

For Kimberly, her change of clothes are white jeans.  They hug her thighs a bit tightly for her comfort as she balances plates in one hand or bends down to the drawer with napkins while Trini trips over her own toes–and she has the best balance in comparison to them all–but it nudges her to buy a bigger size, inevitable with their rigorous Ranger exercise.  The second pair that had still fit her were ruined by the plaster one day while helping Trini out.  The air after the rain is still humid, so she’s opted for an off-shoulder red rose blouse with a plunging neckline, its hem a smidge higher than her waist.  

In laced up Superstars, in case they go out before her parents return, she strolls around her home.  She really needs new clothes, more yellow and green. A green cap.  She’s feeling courageous.  As of now, her ill-fitting clothing are pulling a few nice reactions from her datemate.

She licks her lips.  Examining her healing bruises, she asks, “Pizza and Revry or pizza then Revry?”

Trini makes a noncommittal noise.   

“C’mon, you’ve got to help me pick!”

“You’re the host, so…well.  Whatever.”

“I got you apples honor–” Kimberly rolls her eyes at herself, snapping her fingers, “pineapples on your pizza. I’m still honoring your choices–”

Trini’s phone vibrates, and an a capella ringtone spills out.  

Older than death metal.  Both beautiful, both two sides of the same coin.  Kimberly lists her head to the side.  The single singer is joined by others.  “Are you going to get that?”

“Let’s eat first, I’ll take that call–that’s my dad.” 

“Sure.”

Trini slips out from chair-side in front of a pink wall and swipes it open.  “Hey, Dad,” she says with a slight smile.  

Whatever her dad says, it wilts a bit after.  

It returns.  

She cups the receiver with her hand.  

Kimberly sits and places the pizza box at the center of the plates, golden placemats and water pitcher.  She removes her eyes and pressure off Trini as she puts the pizza table aside and takes the box to toast all the pieces, a fourteen-inch diameter of six parts, with Kimberly’s side topped with every vegetable available.  

She twists the timer to the horizontal toaster and like an impatient statue, waits, arms crossed, for it to warm.  

Another pair joins her waist, and Kimberly leans a bit back.  Trini tucks her chin to her shoulder.  

It's surreal.  They're waiting for the pizza on what should be a mundane Friday as far as it gets, and she might be reading too much into the solemnity of the night before that reached the end of afternoon.  Trini is quiet as well-talking?  There should be talking.  Or none forced at all-one of her biggest weaknesses.  

She shouldn't be feeling this way, they've been through a catastrophe together, defied death! Jon Treloar's poem, "The Fray", is practically tattooed on their skin.  They eat half of their meals together, or when she's forgetful, a portion of Trini's dinner she'd cooked and taken straight from the stove.  Trini, her earpiece, sometimes her eyes.  Her, Trini's second voice.  She knows when to stop her paired teasing with Zack, knows when Trini and Billy are off to a mysterious venture, when there's a clever bit out of Trini's mouth that she can augment, to top off, stop the rest in their tracks; her time and contact with her should be enough.  She must be asking too much.  Like the ample effort Trini puts into their relationship is something she can't compare to and is laughably off-center.

All in all: a wreck.  Instead of lying down on her back on the bare tiles, gripping Trini's foot like Zack once did, she starts with, “That was a beautiful song.”

“Thanks.”

“Is that permanent…for your dad?” She wants to see him again soon.  If he can give one look at them together and put two and two together.

“Sometimes.” Trini murmurs to the shell of her ear.  She rocks them side to side like falling leaves, slow, and Kimberly smiles.  “I switch from this to death metal every few weeks, for a sense of change.  Something I can do.” Trini wrings her hands.  Her fingers brush Kimberly’s stomach.  “I don’t talk much about this.  So–well.”

Kimberly shakes her head.  She loves Trini’s voice.  It’s giving back, after talking her ears off by her own rambling.  At her affirmative hum, she cradles her wrists, tracing deep crescents from the front to the inside of her wrists.

“Sometime later.” Trini murmurs.

“Sure.”  

The toaster sounds.  

Trini jumps, and Kimberly spins.  

She’s grabbed Trini by the ankles before her head goes through the ceiling.

“Fuck,” she says, tilting her head to meet Trini’s eyes.  She smiles.  Safe.  Good.  A trillion thank yous to reflexes.

“Frick,” Trini breathes, then smirks, “you should be a superhero.”

Kimberly guffaws and loses her grip.

Before she knows it, Trini body-slams into her, and they plop into a heap, her cushioning Trini’s fall, and thump onto the tiles.

“There was nothing super about this,” Kimberly wheezes.  

But Trini’s smiling, helping her up to stumble over to the toaster.  “Still a hero.”

“If I didn’t, how would I be able to explain it to my parents?”

Trini pouts, and Kimberly melts.  “You’d eat all the pizza, though.”

Kimberly gasps and turns her head, hand falling to her chest.  “I’d feed you on the second floor while waiting for the firefighters and give your feet a ladder!”

Trini’s face goes into her “Really?” expression, but far from condescending, not the kind used for the likes of mean-spirited peers and adults.  Genuine shock to delight, _that_.   The fact she's the cause swells her heart.  Mata would've called it cardiomegaly, but she knows what's up.  

“That’s really nice,” Trini continues, then nods and visibly breathes through her mouth, dipping her head.  

Kimberly smiles fondly at her while pressing the dull ache on her hip, in her chest.  She watches her stare back, feels her eyes trace her skin, not in a hurry, the weight of the world temporarily removed from her shoulders, and she _really_   watches; her full lips' usual twitch, hands with their callouses loose by her sides, the gentle indoor breeze that sweeps her hair to and fro, her leaning, her smile through her eyes.  The soothing duet of her voice while Kimberly folds paper.

Her eyes burn. 

“Have I ever had an full day with _you_?" Trini's saying, but Kimberly knows there, right there, she also hears, "I love you."

And just like that, Kimberly breathes sharply and tears spill from her cheeks, shook from a stupor she didn't know she was in. 

And Trini is a breath away in an instant, cupping her cheeks with warm hands, her eyes aglow with panic.  "Kim? What happened? What did I do?"

A laugh fumbles from Kimberly's lips.  “Nothing wrong.  I-" she kisses Trini on the cheek.  "I want to show you something.” The words are out of her mouth before they hit her, and she feels herself glow.  

It's been there, always.  It only took her time, like Trini is, as slowly as the facts in her mind catch up with her body.  Just like her.

“Katie McGra’s autograph?” Trini asks.

“Yes but–I’m still looking for it–something else.” Kimberly offers her hand, holding Trini’s wrists when she accepts.  

"Sick.  Hey-what about the pizza?"

Kimberly opens the toaster.

"Sick."

After definitely leaving nothing but two slices behind, and putting her shoes on the rack, she takes her up, tucking her laptop by her side along the way.  The steps stand strong under their light clumping up, silent the whole way.

In her bedroom, Trini views bits of 'The Other Love Story' by Roopa Rao.  The storm has lifted by then with an extraordinary sunset, red and dark, good news, according to Trini, and her windows are all pushed up to sort out the humid air.

The one-and-a-half minute-long trailer pulls reactions from Trini that sends Kimberly's stomach in a swooping swan-dive as she flits around her walk-in closet, checking the sturdy handle of the thick jar she's tucked into the recesses of it, draped in a white cloth fitted under the glass lid.  

She actually doesn't know if it's really glass and why it resembles a mason jar, but she knows it's tougher than the ones on Earth.  Zack's first successful glassblowing session with Alpha Five and gift to her, honestly.  That she knocked over accidentally and dropped on her foot  _and_ didn't shatter.  Win-win.  Now, for the fruits of her labor...

"Trini," she says as she turns, and Trini looks up from the screen, eyes locking onto the jar in both her hands.  "This is for you."

"What's the occasion?" Trini asks, knotting her eyebrows.  

"There isn't one, I want to give this to you." Every fiber of Kimberly's being is shaking so much with excitement, she's afraid she might clip through the floor like a wonky three-dimensional model or the Flash.  She takes her time to reach her, patting the tears drying on her cheeks with the hem of her blouse.  

She holds her breath, when she wants to heave, as she joins Trini at the foot of her bed, tucking her legs underneath.  Trini's legs dangle and swing.  "Thoughts on The Other Love Story?" she asks.

Trini nods, smiles.  "Loving Aadya and Aanchal already."

"Twelve episodes, four dollars," Kimberly grins, rubbing her hands against her jeans.  Oh my god her palms are so sweaty right now.  She holds the jar out.  “Roy G. Biv.” It's like the first time she realized her burgeoning feelings for Trini were romantic as they were platonic, after their friendship proved inseparable.  It's something she's never known.  It's natural.

'It's organic!'

It's natural.

"Roy?-" Trini makes an embarrassed noise.  Kimberly chuckles a tad higher than usual.

"It's a little heavy," she says as she passes it over.

Red.  

Orange.  

Yellow, Green.  

Blue and Violet.  

Cranes, owls, elephants and dragons, crows, boxes, stars, hearts, flowers.  Everything from Kimberly’s learning made intuitively, there.  She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, chewing her bottom lip, shaking, aware those are what Trini finds as she unlocks the lid and tilts it open, settling the cloth onto her lap.  She fastens her fingers onto the patterns of her blanket.  Massaging the worn fabric, she takes her breaths deep, slow, her heart in her throat.  

Even the air feels bottled with the opened windows in waiting.  Her work's a bit shabby.  In her opinion, she should have been more neat--some of the paper she's made for origami are scraps, some torn, some wrappers if they were square, kept their shape, a few cutouts from sheet music a classmate was printing out when it ran out of ink, and some of the origami are uneven while fill the jar she did, but without the assorted colors in order.  Uniformity's never been her method of operation, anyway, and it's for better and worse that she'll take anything at this point.

So when Trini lays a hand on hers for her attention, and she looks into her eyes, she's reeling at the individual details that form gratitude on her face, and adoration of _her_.  That her art's all right, worth appreciation.  

Her jar of origami is a physical extension of her, like her armor, her growing wit, and--a mess.  

She's a wonderful mess.

Trini smiles, as awestruck as her, blushing and looking away as if caught by a split second stroke of an idea.  "Thanks, Kim." She beams even more, hugging the jar to her chest with one hand as she leans in, pressing her free one into Kimberly's thigh.

"I do my best," Kimberly whispers.  She shuts her eyes as the kiss lands on her lips, pushing back by the slightest, maybe even trembling, and wraps her arms around Trini's waist.  She strokes Trini's wrist as they part, dipping her head, sighing as tears slip down her face.

"How are you?" Trini asks, her voice softer.   

"I just _have_  these...feelings," she sniffs.

"That's one of the strongest things about you," Trini replies in a murmur, and Kimberly flushes down to her toes.  

"Want to get started with the show?"

Trini hums and pushes her way closer to the center of the bed.  Kimberly follows eagerly, stacking pillows for the laptop.  She aims the lamplight on her nightstand towards them to lessen the strain on their eyes before she hugs Trini by the waist, navigating to the first episode.  Trini settles her hand into Kimberly's hair, ruffling and smoothing them as Kimberly sinks to her side, listening to the opening's reverb of a piano.  The subtitles shift and warp, so she shuts her eyes and focuses on the characters' voices, familiar like old friends, when the webseries has been as old as a year.  Trini, beside her, is in for a doozy.  She feels it grips her, by her quiet presence and solemn intent, keeping a steady rhythm with her strokes that turns Kimberly's thoughts to hazy lines.

It's been a long day.  A very bad, very good, long day.

But the night is still young; so are they.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *credit for kimberly's affinity for origami belongs to hearden, aka pathfinderofhyperion.tumblr.com!!! pls read their fanfic 'legacy of power' it's real good but the seventh chapter is my villain origin story folks, pls read it
> 
> also check out wtfoctagon idk them personally but their supergirl fanfics are a joy and I jUST saw them post a fanfic while i was finishing this, it's 'and you're the only one who knows'
> 
> read them ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> p.s. read those two fanfics srsly
> 
> p.s.s. like same ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


	7. Who leaves dirty laundry on the floor?

After a dollop of sunblock, their dry clothes packed in a safe alcove terraformed by nature, swimsuits on and towels out, they were ready.  Along with Zack and Billy, Trini had settled down into the low-lying bluff set above a river just in sight outside Angel Grove.  A waterfall churned faraway from their right.  Jason and Kimberly’s descent was all that was left.

Trini exchanged a glance with Billy.  “How are you feeling?”

“Great, Trini.  You?”

“Anxious.” Trini replied.  (Per usual.) “I was joking about bringing my rosary for this, but now…” She shrugged, not hiding her shudder.

Billy made a sympathetic sound.  “We’re going to be okay.”

Trini smiled a little.  Billy’s intuition was king.  And she wasn’t doing this alone, for starters, so if she went under, they’d reel her in.  (Michael Phelps, who?) “You think they can make up that waterfall like salmon?” 

“If you can compare the salmons’ size in ratio to a waterfalls’,” Billy thought aloud.  He nodded.  “I guess so.”

“We’re the Power Rangers!” Zack cheered.  “Without the ‘Power’ part, we’d be really different Rangers, if I say so myself.”

“Zack, you’re ripped.” Trini and Billy said in unison.

“I know.  But now, I feel even more ripped.”

“How did you get ripped?” Billy asked.  "What’s your routine? I’m asking for a-a friend,“ he added.

“Are you all about to start a flexing contest?”

Kimberly had arrived, with Jason in orbit.  “I wouldn’t mind," she said as her eyes trailed to Trini’s with her words.  Then she was shucking her shirt and kicking off her converse, dropping them and the rest in a pile.  

Trini took a deep breath.  Maybe she needed the rosary, after all.  And Billy too, what with the slight dip he did with his chin to Jason’s abs, rub of his palms against his shorts, and his tad higher “Hey Jason!” as he made his way over.  They were certainly on the same wavelength.

“Kim, d'you want me to put your clothes in a bag?” she asked as she went to her.

Kimberly’s hands were already smoothing the creases in her jeans when she looked up.  “Oh, sure!” she said as Trini stared hard into its belt loops.  “I was going to fold them.  It’s my thing–fold them on the floor–I’m not using them later, but I use them for spills, when I want to sit on the floor, sort them into piles.”

“I’ll keep them in good condition.” Trini said.  

At Kimberly’s smile, she tried to carve it into her memory, long after Kimberly dove flawlessly into the river, followed by Jason’s classic hop that more or less resembled a wobbling Jell-O.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ik this is p short compared to the prev chapter but im writing w a free idea of length
> 
> pls tell me everything abt the deleted scenes if u got the time bc i dont have the movie digitally or physically asdfasdfxdfhgnmhjb
> 
> and srsly did u see how jason went into the barrier first time he was like wubwbuwbuwubuw


	8. Stays up until 2 am reading?

“So, should I join you? I’ve got cold feet.”

“It’s no problem, Kimmy.”

The whole thing is perfectly sound.  Trini nods as she shifts in bed, folding open her blankets and fixing the remaining pillows she has piled around her back to the head of the bed.  Kimberly washes her feet carefully in Trini’s family’s bathroom before she returns to Trini’s room, threading her way in after slipping on socks for cold feet.

The sigh Trini makes cascades over Kimberly, mellowing traces of caustic nerves from the afternoon, and her embrace follows likewise.  They turn her to focus inward, coaxing her to relax.  She reaches for Trini’s forehead and presses a kiss there, humming as Trini lays a warm hand flat against her shoulder.

“I’m still wearing my bra,” Kimberly realizes.

She reluctantly unwinds the arms around her stomach and darts out from bed. The quick whine Trini emits is an incentive for her to chuck the offending garment and hop in as fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my ask meme answers vary in length yea ;;; the end is near tho!


	9. Who sings in the shower?

At the strongest part of the branch belonging to an aged sycamore tree, surrounded by more supporting them from a painful fall, Kimberly and Trini sit, clothes plastered from the dash for cover at the earliest brontide, a sonorous long bellow, nearly joining the moment lightning struck.  It’s been done in vain, but Kimberly adores the dash of tunes Trini sings, lyricized or pure absolute.  

They stumble with the harmonizing for a while, but the payoffs are a medley for storms, the reassuring press of Trini’s side pressing into hers, them stubbornly staying on the branch, and the warm wash of the rain down their backs and faces.


	10. Who takes the selfies?

“Trini, over here!”

She did, after a careful turn with the budgerigars atop her shoulders and long sleeves.  A green one on her right forearm fluttered perilously upside, but by the slight tilt of her wrist, she saved them.  

A cockatoo preened themselves atop Kimberly’s head.

Trini goggled. “Holy carp, that’s something.”

Kimberly grinned and waved her phone. “Selfie?”

\-----

“Trini, if you will?” Kimberly asks as she vaults behind a sign to an open house, teetering close to the edge of the sidewalk.  They lead to freshly cut bushes, and she dislikes the chance of tripping into the clippings or touching the leaves with her eyes.  She glances where she seconds ago, dodged a UFO with the help of Snapchat.  Its remnants are taking the shape of a Putty now, along with the splintered surface of asphalt.

“Okay,” Trini says, her voice nodding, but she’s still in position, her wavering hand giving away her credentials as a living organism, but almost statuesque in getting the right angle.  “Let me take this first.”

“Right.” Kimberly says.  With a quick scan of the residential district and hearing for any citizens in present danger in her vicinity, relieved, she darts to Trini’s side.  “Can I do bunny ears?”

“With me? Obvs,” Trini says as she makes a peace sign between her eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feels wonky imo but here


	11. Who plans date night?

~~~~

Kimberly’s days at the Pit are of evasive lunges and clever redirection. Each is holistic growth. As the second shortest of the Power Rangers but most agile, she downs Putties in her wake with more grit in her hair than any of the others in her ducks and rolls. She rises with the least scratches.

But a palm strike from Trini to her nose? A solid kick in her gut while her nose throbs? The leg sweep, the final move that throws her to the ground her for the count? It’s a change. She’s blinking from tears now, but in another hour, she’ll congratulate Trini. This was the speediest takedown in their training for weeks. It means she has a powerful ally (and a tenacious bona fide datemate). It means she has room to improve.

Trini crouches in view, lips pursed with worry as she leans, shadowing Kimberly’s view in her brilliance that breaks her from a bi-focal reminiscence.

Trini’s pushes her hair over her shoulder, eyes passing over Kimberly before reaching out. She brushes her bruised lips lightly, and Kimberly nearly licks them by instinct.

She swallows and remains her utmost still (which is actually not much) until Trini takes out a long brass-colored handkerchief from the pocket of her blue cargo shorts and places it into Kimberly’s hand on her nose. “I’m sorry.” she says softly, and Kimberly forgets how to even her breath, something within her swelling. (It better not be the effects of possible pathogens in the material makeup of the Putties.)

Zack woops from afar as Billy makes a sympathetic sound. “Hoe down!” the former says.

“Zack!” Trini winces. “By Aaron Copland featuring Kimberly Hart,” she adds in undertones, mouth twitching, possibly at an inside joke, but it leaves in a blink of concern.

Kimberly pushes herself up, crisscrossing her legs, pinching with her free hand her tank top to wipe the blood dripping on her arm. Trini’s head drops, eyes flitting to the ground, bringing her hand to shield her eyes before smoothing invisible wrinkles on her lap. Trouble stirs in Kimberly’s stomach. “Hoe up,” she simply says, then lies back down with a muted groan. She counts stars.

She lowers the hem of her shirt, prone from the pain once the adrenaline recedes. Trini sighs in relief. “What is it?” she asks.

“Abs–Absolutely nothing but your nose. I think I broke your nose.” Trini grimaces.  “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. I’ve got an ice pack in my bag.”

“Trini,” she says nasally and smiles, “It’ll heal.” She shakes her head then eyes the blood spattered on her white Superstar shoes. Can’t always fight on the spot in sensible sneakers. She pulls the handkerchief from her nose. “I’ll wash these off in the water barrier.” With regained strength, she stands, unfurling the handkerchief and turning from the Pit by the twist of her hip.

“Isn’t that gross?” Zack calls after her.

“The ocean’s the bathroom for aquatic organisms,” Trini deadpans. She isn’t far from Kimberly.

“Damn, I forgot that.”

Both fall into step as they stroll through the winding passages made from the spaceship long ago. The quiet punctuated only by their footfalls, the light drag of Trini’s fingers on the rock formations, and Kimberly rustling the handkerchief to find a fresh spot to stop her nose, there is as much ease in it after the significant other slugged her hard enough to draw blood.

“Thank you for the save,” Kimberly says, almost touching the inside of Trini’s elbow but doesn’t with her icky hands, gently nudging her side. “The barrier is still a good source to clean with, by the way.”

Trini nods. “Don’t mention it.“ Wonder skims across her face; Kimberly basks in her attention, if for a moment. “What about it?”

“Purified water.” Kimberly’s mind leaps to the subject instantly. “Does half of the cleansing.” Then comes the climbing sensation she experiences when she’s about to break into song, or into detail, like now, but the blood she’s clotted makes for a gritty discomfort in her nose and clothes.  She sniffs instead.  “Incompatible for goldfish, but another quality keeps it clean every day.”

Trini nods.  Kimberly tilts her head.  “Got something on your mind?”

“…Yeah.  I defeated you really hard today,” Trini says.  “You usually evade my swings, but I’ve caused you more pain than usual.  I want to make it up to you.  Dinner on me?” Her cheeks flush with surprise in her voice for some reason.  "Dinner.  I’ll pay for dinner.“

“Sure!  But it’s no trouble really, Trini…it was just an accident.“

Trini makes a noise at the back of her throat, and Kimberly stumbles.  “There’s no time like the present and–think of this as a make up for your nose.  And, I’ll go anywhere with you.”

“Anywhere?” Kimberly winks.

“Anywhere in Angel Grove,” Trini grouses, lightly hip-checking Kimberly.  "Or you chip in.“

“Then it’s settled.”

They smile at each other, Trini acting first when Kimberly squeezes her nose shut again.  “We got to clean up first.  Boost me?”

“Gladly.” Kimberly’s already heading toward her, arms wrapping around her waist.

Bobbing to the surface like flotsam and cleansed of blood and sweat, they tread the water in silence.

It’s never been fuller.

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (my general feelings abt writing these)
> 
> hmu on my tumblr under the same name if you wanna talk to me abt trimberly and/or classical music
> 
> happy pride month!


End file.
